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An Error Analysis on Simple Past Tense Made by Second Grade Students in their Stories
(A Psycholinguistics Approach)
THESIS
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment of Requirement for the Sarjana Degree in
English Department Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts
Sebelas Maret University
By:
Via Listianingrum
C0308090
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND FINE ARTS
SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY
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MOTTO
“Human goodness is measured by what he has
been done”
commit to user vi DEDICATION
I dedicate this thesis to:
» My beloved mother
» My supportive father
commit to user vii ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdullilahirobil’alamin
All praises and gratitude are to the most gracious and the most merciful, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala, for blessing me upon accomplishing this thesis. I tried my best
and kept believing, so that, finally I could finish writing of this thesis.
I do realize that this thesis cannot be finished without contributions and support from
other individuals and institutions. For that reason, I would like to send out my deepest
appreciation for:
1. The Dean of Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts, Drs. Riyadi Santosa, M.Ed.,
Ph.D., for giving approval for this thesis
2. The Head of English Department, Drs. Agus Hari Wibowo, M.A, Ph.D., for
supporting the fulfillment of this thesis.
3. Prof. Dr. Djatmika, M.A., my thesis supervisor who had made me to choose
linguistics program when I was a student in one of his classes. My biggest
thanks for the guidance, patience, attention, advice during the process of
finishing this thesis. I am very grateful for his advices and knowledge.
4. Dra. Susilorini, M.A., my academic supervisor. My gratitude is for all advices
and patience guidance given to me during my study in Sebelas Maret
University.
5. All of lecturers of English Department, for giving a lot of precious
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English, for giving opportunity and providing many helps in collecting the
data, for allowing me to take your time for interviewing and letting me come
in the class.
7. All of the students in the second grade of Gama Center special for English
academic year 2012, especially female students, for letting me to intrude your
spare time to make my data.
8. My beloved mother and father, for their everlasting effort, for affection,
support, undeniable love and pray that is always spoken every time.
9. My one heart, Irsandi Arifin, S.T., for the motivations, kindness, and support
given to me every single day. Thank you for coloring my life wisely.
10.My best friend, Udiana Puspa Dewi, S.S., for the support, discussion,
inspirations and your opinions help me a lot concerning on this thesis.
11.My truly friends in Solo, Ana, Okky, Nabila and Ipung, for being second
family and incessant friendship.
12.All of my friends in English Department ’08. I will miss you all.
I fully realize that there is nothing perfect in this world so is this
thesis. Therefore, all constructing criticism and suggestion would be willingly
accepted. I really hope that this thesis would be beneficial for the readers.
commit to user ix TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER ... i
APPROVAL OF THE THESIS ... ii
APPROVAL OF THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS ... iii
PRONOUNCEMENT ... iv A. Research Background... 1
B. Problem Limitation ... 5
C. Problem Statements ... 6
D. Research Objectives ... 6
E. Research Benefits ... 6
F. Research Methodology... 7
CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW A. Psycholinguistics ... 9
B. Second Language Acquisition... 10
C. English Grammar ... 11
1. The Simple Past Tense (Regular verbs) ... 12
2. The Simple Past Tense (Irregular Verbs) ... 14
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E. Grammatical Errors ... 23
F. Classification of Errors ... 23
G. The Cause of Errors ... 25
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHODS A. Research Method ... 29
B. Data and Data Sources ... 29
C. Sample and Sampling Technique ... 31
D. Technique of Collecting Data ... 31
E. Instrument of the Research... 32
F. The Technique of Data Analysis…… ... 33
2. Analysis of the Addition ... 44
2.1. Addition of Double Suffixes ... 44
2.2. Addition of Phoneme ... 45
2.3. Addition of Auxiliary To Do ... 46
3. Analysis of Misformation ... 47
3.1. Misformation of Regular verb ... 48
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3.3. Misformation of To Be ... 53
4. Analysis of Misordering ... 54
5. Analysis of Combination Errors ... 56
5.1. Combination Errors of Absence and Addition ... 56
5.6. Combination of Misformation and Misordering ... 67
5.6.1. Misformation of To Be and Misordering ... 67
5.6.2. Misformation of Irregular verb and Misordering ... 68
C. Discussion Factors Influencing Error... 69
1. Interlingual factor. ... 69
a. Transfer of Structure ... 70
2. Intralingual Factor. ... 71
a. Overgeneralization Error ... 72
commit to user xii Table 2.1 Affirmative Statements for Regular verb ... 12
Table 2.2 Negative Statements for Regular verb ... 12
Table 2.3 Affirmative Statements for Irregular verb ... 14
Table 2.4 Negative Statements for Irregular verb ... 14
Table 2.5 Yes / no questions ... 16
Table 2.6 Wh- questions (subject) ... 16
Table 2.7 Wh- questions (others) ... 17
Table 2.8 Affirmative Statements for Singular Past tense ... 19
Table 2.9 Affirmative Statements for Plural Past tense ... 19
Table 2.10 Negative Statements for Singular Past tense ... 20
Table 2.11 Negative Statements for Plural Past tense... 20
Table 2.12 Yes / no questions for Singular Past tense ... 20
Table 2.13 Yes / no questions for Plural Past tense ... 21
Table 3.1 The data classification and the total numbers of errors ... 36
Table 3.2 The data of Absence of ‘to be’ and the revision ... 39
Table 3.3 The data of Absence of ‘to do’ and the revision ... 42
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Table 3.5 The data of Misformation of ‘Regular verb’ and the revision ... 49
Table 3.6 The data of Misformation of ‘Irregular verb’ and the revision ... 51
Table 3.7 The data of Misformation of ‘to be’ and the revision ... 54
Table 4.1 The types and the numbers of the factor influencing error ... 69
Table 4.2 The types and the numbers of Intralingual factor ... 72
Table 4.3 The data of Overgeneralization error and the revision ... 74
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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This research involved the English course students of Second Grade of Gama Centre Special for English in academic year 2012. It was held from August until October 2012. This was a descriptive research which deals with natural phenomena, using data which are collected first hand during the observation. This method refers to formulate the conclusion by collecting, classifying, and interpreting the data of the research.
The data in this research are all sentences in simple past tense produced by students. The sources of the data are from the students’ stories of picture story book and interview. Each student got a story book. The story should be constructed in simple past tense by the students. The researcher also interviewed the respondents to find the reasons of the grammatical errors.
The results of the data analysis show that there are five categories of the types of simple past errors. They are absence / omission, addition, misformation, misordering and combination of errors. The result shows that misformation is the highest number of errors. The next is the factors influencing students making errors which are divided into two, interlingual factor and intralingual factor. Interlingual factor is divided into three types, overextension of analogy, transfer structure and interlingual transfer. There are four types of intralingual factor, namely overgeneralization error, ignorance of rule restriction, incomplete application of rule and false concept hypothesized.
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Student of English Department/ NIM C0308090
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